Magnetic Lake

A freak accident and lots of pollution result in Possum Lake being magnetized. Life in the area becomes very difficult, especially for anything metallic. So Red and his pals decide to try and demagnetize the lake. Can they do so without reversing the Earth's polarity and sending the moon hurtling into the sun?

Cast (in order of appearance):, , , , , ,

Segments: Red's Campfire Songs, Handyman Corner, The Experts, Red's Poetry, Hap Shaughnessy's Houseboat, Adventures With Bill, Harold's Segments, Glen Brachston's R.V.

DVD Commentary by Steve Smith
STEVE SMITH: We had a lot of comment on this Magnetic Lake episode. I think there's something compelling about a lake that was so polluted that you could actually magnetize it. And we were looking for some kind of an electrical effect near the end. We were up shooting in Muskoka, which is a kind of a cottage area north of Toronto, and there was a huge electrical storm. And we just, we went out– all of us, we just went out and sat down on a rock and watched this thing in the middle of the night. And the cameraman, he's already got his camera out, so he was actually taping this huge electrical storm, hitting the lake and everything, for no particular application. And later on, I realized, that would be great for the magnetic lake shot. So what we did was, we took the footage he shot of lightning hitting the lake. We slowed it down and we reversed it {begins pointing up} so the lightning looked like it was... {looking confused, starts pointing down} oh, maybe it shoulda gone that way... Anyway, it's different! So if you wanna see what we were actually looking at, then just record this yourself, and– oh, you already have. And then just play it back backwards, which'll be forward, but you'll need to speed it up because we slowed it down. That'd be fun for ya.

Title Sequence
''{The Red Green Show intro plays. After introducing the characters, the scene cuts to a shot of Harold posing in front of an extremely bright light.}''

RED GREEN: {voiceover} This is Red Green, and this time around, Harold is going to pretend he's God...

{Cut to a shot of Bill pushing a boat off from a dock into the lake.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Bill's going to launch a boat...

{Cut to a shot of a laundry pole spinning, with several seats and stuffed animals attached to it.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} And I'm building a kiddie ride for the back yard.

''{Cut to a photo of the Lodge. Several gunshots appear in the screen, then the screen shatters outward.}''

Intro
{The camera walks out from a back room and looks at several items before arriving in the main Lodge room, while Harold introduces the show.}

HAROLD GREEN: And now, here's a man who's been called one of Canada's national treasures, your host, my uncle, Mr. Red Green!

{Red walks into the Lodge and waves as the audience cheers.}

RED GREEN: Thank you. Thank you so much. And hello there, Harold, who is also a national treasure, and if I had my way, would be buried by pirates.

HAROLD GREEN: Well, until that time, let's just let my fingers walk the plank!

''{Harold taps the keyboard on his switcher, but nothing happens. He looks around for a moment.}''

HAROLD GREEN: Nothing happened. {looks at the switcher} My A.D.O. didn't video-flange the image!

RED GREEN: No, and your doo-dingus didn't flip-flop the thingy, there.

HAROLD GREEN: Exactly, yeah, well, yes! My skew is off.

RED GREEN: {looks at the switcher} Hmm... Y'know, there's something I do to our TV at home. Where's the horizontal hold on this thing?

HAROLD GREEN: {points to a part of the switcher} Well, that's that one right there.

RED GREEN: {walks in front of Harold} There? All right, just hold still.

''{Red holds the switcher, then kicks it with his knee. Harold stands still for a moment, hunched over slightly.}''

RED GREEN: {pauses} Huh. That usually works at home. Mind you, we have the Beta. Interesting week up at the Lodge this week. You know, we've done– all the power went off after a big thunderstorm. So the guys all went out and gathered up firewood so that we could keep warm, and when the power came back on, it didn't, y'know! So what happened was, Junior Singleton had cut down a power line pole to use as firewood. So now we're thinking, what else can we use for electricity around here? And we start thinking about Possum Lake. Now Possum Lake has got so much acid in it, it's got lead, cadmium and zinc. Y'know, in a certain way, the lake is like a big battery. So we got thinking and drinking, and out we come with all our jumper cables. We hooked up all our jumper cables to the car batteries, we tried to jump-start Possum Lake. Well, unfortunately, somebody had reversed the polarity on their cables, and something real strange happened, and we ended up magnetizing the whole lake.

{A video clip showing a flyover of Possum Lake suddenly flies into the screen, flips around, then leaves the screen again.}

RED GREEN: Wow, your video effects just arrived, Harold.

HAROLD GREEN: Wow, that's like, forty seconds late! ''Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho! Woo!''

RED GREEN: Y'know, it might have something to do with Possum Lake. There's a magnetic field around here now. Everybody's watch is running backwards.

HAROLD GREEN: Woo, it's like an episode of The Twilight Zone! {imitates the opening sequence to that show}

RED GREEN: Yeah, or Bewitched.

HAROLD GREEN: {begins imitating the Bewitched intro, dances around a bit}

RED GREEN: Oh, never mind. Anyway, we're all working hard to demagnetize the lake because everybody's belt buckle's pointing north and it's real hard to walk into town. But hopefully none of this will get in the way of the real attraction, the show we have for you tonight. So just bear with us, and please don't adjust your set.

HAROLD GREEN: Especially your channel knob.

RED GREEN: Right. Take us away, Harold.

''{Harold taps the keyboard on his switcher. Again, nothing happens.}''

RED GREEN: Oh boy. {gets in front of Harold and kicks the switcher again.} I always wanted to direct!

Red's Campfire Song 1
{Red plays guitar while Harold tries to whistle a blade of grass between his thumbs}

RED GREEN:
 * When a man can live alone in the woods,
 * With only his wits and a big knife or equivalent,
 * Without the comfort of a home or a job or a friend,
 * Boy that's really something, if he can live there without coming to an end.
 * It fills his heart with so much pride.
 * It's not exactly enjoyable, but it's a lot less humiliating than trying to borrow money.

{Harold blows against the grass blade, then starts choking on it and ends up swallowing it.}

The Experts
{Harold stands in the Lodge basement beside a table.}

HAROLD GREEN: This is the part of the show where we expose the three little words that men find so difficult to say: "I don't know." {Red and Bob emerge from behind a door in the back and enter into the room.} So here to prove that point is my uncle, Red, and, of course, his bestest, most best friend, Mr. Bob Stuyvesant!

''{Red and Bob wave. They all sit around the table. Harold picks up a letter.}''

HAROLD GREEN: All righty. Here we go: "Dear Experts, my nephew is coming to stay with me for the summer."

RED GREEN: {to the camera} Well, you certainly have my sympathy. {to Harold} Go on, Harold.

HAROLD GREEN: "And I don't really have a lot of habits or activities that would interest a ten-year-old boy. Do you have any suggestions?"

{Pause}

BOB STUYVESANT: I don't think I really understand the question.

RED GREEN: Me neither, Harold.

HAROLD GREEN: Well, his nephew is coming to stay, and he wants to make sure that he has fun, so...

RED GREEN, BOB STUYVESANT: {in unison} Right...

{Pause}

HAROLD GREEN: Well, he wants to make sure that the boy has fun on his summer when he's there.

RED GREEN: Why?

BOB STUYVESANT: Well, I mean, come on. I mean, there's probably hundreds of things that a young lad can do to have fun in the summer. I mean, uh... let's see, there's... {he holds up his golf club} Well... well, there's golf. Huh. Golf is great fun.

HAROLD GREEN: Well, he's ten. He might be a little bit small for golf.

BOB STUYVESANT: Okay... mini-golf.

HAROLD GREEN: Okay, uh... well, is there any other ideas?

BOB STUYVESANT: Oh, sure. I mean, there must lots of things you can do with a kid, aren't there, Red?

RED GREEN: Oh, yeah.

{Pause}

HAROLD GREEN: ...Could we be a little more specific?

BOB STUYVESANT: You know, my sister, when she used to come at Christmas and bring the kids, I used to play this little game with them called, uh, "Adapt". That, uh, worked out pretty well.

HAROLD GREEN: "Adapt"! Oh, boy! How does that work?

BOB STUYVESANT: Oh, it's easy, really. The adults, they do absolutely anything they want, and the kids have to adapt. You know, it's an old-fashioned, family tradition thing.

RED GREEN: Sounds like an educational game, too, Harold.

HAROLD GREEN: I'm guessing you don't have anybody staying with you this summer.

BOB STUYVESANT: No. So far, it's working great.

Red's Campfire Song 2
RED GREEN:
 * It doesn't really matter how old and tired and grow,
 * You always will remember that first kiss so long ago.

{Harold laughs.}

RED GREEN: {spoken} Who're you kiddin'?
 * {singing} I got my first kiss from Mary Brown.
 * It was lovely and it was sweet.
 * I opened my lips and ate it,
 * Because it was a Halloween treat.
 * One of them brown ones, Harold, with a black and orange wrapper.
 * I tried to pick the best one.
 * 'Cause I figured if I couldn't handle a treat,
 * A trick would be out of the question.

Harold's Segment
RED GREEN: {voiceover} Now here's something for the kids which does not represent the views or opinions of any intelligent human life-form. Harold?

Plot Segment 3
{Red enters the Lodge, covered once again in various metal objects.}

RED GREEN: Boy, this is inconvenient! Well, we figured out how to demagnetize the lake. What we're gonna do is, we're gonna make a gigantic electromagnet out of the Possum Van. We've wrapped her with, I think, about 500 yards of tinfoil, and we're gonna hot-wire that whole unit into the local power grid, which we can tap into, we figure, 50 trillion megavolts, which I believe gives us somewhere in the range of 500,000 kilowatts, so... Which will be just enough to exactly demagnetize the lake. Or possibly, reverse the earth's polarity and sending the moon hurtling into the sun.

{A faint rumble of thunder is heard and the lights dim slightly.}

RED GREEN: Oh, here we go.

''{Cut to a view of the lake. A bolt of lightning flashes up out of the lake. Cut back to inside the Lodge. The lights return to full brightness. Red is now completely free of metal objects, but the objects are now stuck to Harold.}''

RED GREEN: {impressed, not noticing Harold} Well! That was a total success!

HAROLD GREEN: {through his teeth; muffled, panicked} Uncle Red!

RED GREEN: {looks at Harold} Holy jeeze, Harold, what're you, the Terminator or the Tin Man?

HAROLD GREEN: {muffled} My retainer got welded to my filling! Haw! I can't talk!

RED GREEN: {grinning broadly} Oh now, that's a setback, Harold.

{The "Squeal of the Possum" sounds.}

HAROLD GREEN: {muffled} Oh, it's meeting time.

RED GREEN: Yeah, yeah, Harold. Don't talk with your mouth fused. You go ahead, I'll be right down.

HAROLD GREEN: {muffled} Okay.

{Harold stumbles toward the back stairs.}

RED GREEN: {to the camera} Well, hopefully, the North Pole is back where it should be: where the sun don't shine. And, uh, that's about it for this show, so if my wife is watching, I'll be coming home straight after the meeting. Maybe we can do a test to see if opposites attract. Might help if we were Polish, right? Lodge humor, gotta love it! {to the audience} And to the rest of you, on behalf of myself and Mr. Magneto-Head and the whole gang up here at Possum Lodge, thanks so much for watching, keep your stick on the ice. {waves and heads for the stairs}

''{Cut to the Lodge Meeting. Bob walks over to the front of the room, followed closely by Red. They stand in between Harold (still with the metal objects over his body), Glen and Dougie Franklin.}''

HAROLD GREEN: All rise!

{Everyone stands up and cross their arms over their chests.}

EVERYONE: Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.

RED GREEN: Sit down. ''{The men sit down. Red and Harold remain standing.} All right, I guess you realize that all the magnetism has gone from the lake and gone somewhere else... {He gestures toward Harold. The men laugh.}''

Real-World References

 * Red's comment, "Please don't adjust your set", is similar to a portion of the intro sequence to the TV show The Outer Limits.
 * Hap's remark about Neil Armstrong is a parody of the astronaut's famous line, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
 * When Harold's retainer fuses with his fillings, Red's remark compares Harold's grinning appearance to that of the Terminator, and the sound of his speech to that of the Tin Woodman in The Wizard of Oz.

Famous People

 * Red and Harold refer to the TV shows The Twilight Zone and Bewitched.